Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip attend the State Opening of Parliament in the House of Lords London, on Dec. 3, 2008. The Queen's speech sets out the government's plans for the next parliamentary session. 十二月三日，英女王伊麗莎白二世和菲利普親王赴倫敦上議院出席國會開幕大典。女王在致詞中闡述了政府下個國會會期的計畫。照片：美聯社

PHOTO: AP

Britons are forbidden from disturbing packs of eggs and from selling game killed on a Sunday, it was revealed by a lawmaker who condemned ministers for introducing weird, off the wall laws.

The day after Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government laid out its agenda for the coming year, Liberal Democrat lawmaker Chris Huhne noted the stream of sometimes "completely bizarre" new offences it had created.

Since the Labour party took power in 1997 under then prime minister Tony Blair, it has created 3,600 new criminal offences, Huhne said, adding this was "massively complicating" the job of police and the criminal justice system.

"Some of these offences are completely bizarre - for example, the offence of causing a nuclear explosion," he told members of parliament (MPs)."

He said that if somebody causes a nuclear explosion, there would certainly be casualties. The culprit would be subject to a murder charge, so the new law is redundant.

Other new offences include "wilfully pretending to be a barrister," "disturbing a pack of eggs when instructed not to by an authorized officer" and "offering for sale a game bird killed on a Sunday or Christmas day," he said.

Huhne accused the government of doing nothing to repeal these laws. Justice minister Jack Straw asked for a full list of the ones the MP wanted removed from the statute books so that he could review them.(AFP)